If I Break
by miserymire
Summary: When Link learns of his father's death, he feels his world fall down around him. Though he tries his hardest not to let his exterior crumble down with it, Zelda can see through the cracks. Angsty/fluffy Zelink, pre-Calamity.


The air surrounding Link had already been heavy. The princess, yet again, failed to awaken her sealing powers. Zelda had cried out to him, begging for some sort of answer, and it hurt him that he couldn't give her one. She continued to cry through the night as they camped near the Spring of Power, and Link felt so guilty he couldn't sleep.

So when another knight slowly, carefully reached out to Link as they made it back to the castle in the morning, telling him in a somber voice that his father was killed in an attack, the atmosphere surrounding him was beyond being purely emotional. It was a physical feeling of heaviness crushing down on him, like the guard's words were a wave forcing him deep under water and he couldn't swim up. Link took in a slow breath, the air struggling to make its way past the lump in his throat. In his mind, he played through the last day's events, noting every chance he missed to make it back sooner, every way he could have done something differently so that his father could still be alive.

' _It's my fault._ '

He nodded to the knight once, swiftly turned around, and walked away. Link tried his hardest to look straight ahead and ignore everyone around him, but even in his peripheral vision he saw how all the other knights and guards were staring at him with anticipation. He could tell they already knew, and that they were waiting to see how the boy who never reacted to anything would react.

' _I'm not giving them the pleasure. I'm not going to break_.'

Link's fists curled up at his sides, and his pace quickened. He just wanted to catch up with Zelda. He knew she had plenty to get off her chest that she hadn't back at the fountain, and he needed the distraction.

' _I could have been there. I could have been there._ '

Her door was slightly open when he got to it. Link knocked on the frame, and not even a full second later the door was swinging open to reveal a discontent Zelda. She instructed him to come in, and closed the door behind him after he did. Her hands flew up to her hair, where she grasped at her golden roots.

"What... What do I tell my father?" she said as she began pacing through her room.

' _Tell him you're happy he's alive_.'

"And _how?_ How do I tell him that I've failed again? No... No, I can't. I'm not telling him. He just—he doesn't _understand_. All he'll do is scold me again." She stopped walking, her hands falling to her sides and clutching at her dress anxiously. "I can't speak to him until I awaken my sealing magic. I have to avoid him."

' _Don't. You don't know what could happen to him_.'

Zelda peered over her shoulder at Link as if to make sure he was still there, then turned and slowly walked closer to him. Her eyes scanned his face, as they often did, but it looked different for once. When he was at his most expressive, his eyebrows were ever so slightly drawn together, still not quite emotive enough to no longer be considered neutral. This time was more than just a slight adjustment of his eyebrows, however, but she couldn't pinpoint exactly why.

"Is something wrong, Link?"

Link's lips parted, but no words came out. One word, that would have been so simple to say, came to his mind: ' _Everything_.'

Zelda frowned and looked down. "Nothing to say?" she quietly said. She peeked up at him through her eyelashes to find that his mouth was closed and his expression was back to the slightly off neutral one it had been. She sighed. "You can tell me, Link. Yes or no; is something wrong?"

"No," Link said in a heartbeat.

Zelda looked back up as fast as Link had responded. Link mentally berated himself as he waited for her to wring him out for lying so obviously.

To his surprise, her reply was delicate, barely more than a whisper. "Tell me what's wrong."

' _He's dead_.'

"Tell me what's wrong," Zelda said, more forcefully, when Link said nothing. "And _don't_ respond with a one word non-answer."

Link pursed his lips. She was upset because of her own failure and her father, and he didn't want to make it about his. He couldn't answer her with the real truth, so he settled for another. "...I don't think you should avoid your father."

Zelda's grip on her dress tightened to the point where she could feel her fingernails digging into her palms through the fabric, deep enough that there would be crescent-shaped marks embedded into her skin whenever she would let go. "Why _should_ I talk to him?"

' _Because you still can_.'

"So he can be angry at me?" she went on. "Angry at me for something I have no control of, at that! You saw him when he scolded me two days ago, Link. You were there. You know there's no point in speaking to him until I awaken my magic. He'll only continue scolding me until I do."

Link knew she was right, but that didn't make him agree with her choice to avoid him. Things were getting worse in Hyrule by the day. If his own father—one of the highest ranked knights in Hyrule—couldn't even survive an attack, there was no way the king could. Sure, he was almost constantly surrounded by innumerable guards, but it would only take one enemy sly enough to slip through the cracks for his life to be ended.

"But... But what if something were to happen to your father?"

As Zelda stared into his eyes, she noticed what was possibly the thing she couldn't put her finger on when she first realized he looked different. He was blinking much more than he normally did.

"Are you ... trying not to cry?" she questioned.

Link's heart began to beat heavily in his chest. ' _I'm not going to cry. I won't._ '

His silence only worked to make Zelda more certain that something was wrong, and more determined to find out what it was. " _Link_ ," she sternly said. "Do not make a princess beg. Tell me what's wrong, already."

' _But I can't save face and tell you at the same time_.'

The princess grabbed his arm and walked over to her bed with him in tow. She sat down and patted next to her. "Why don't you have a seat and talk to me?"

"I don't think it's appropriate for—"

"I don't think it's appropriate for you to not comply with my demands," Zelda interrupted. "Now, sit down."

It was one thing to not comply when she demanded him to talk, and another when she demanded he do something physical. He sat down next to her without thinking. After realizing what he'd done, his body tensed up. He knew that nobody, not even the king, would ever come into Zelda's room without knocking first and receiving her permission, which would give him more than enough time to get off her bed, but he still feared getting caught.

"I swear on my heart, I won't tell a soul what you tell me," Zelda said, again with a delicate, quiet voice that she rarely used when speaking to him. "What happened in that short amount of time we were separated after getting back? It's just between the two of us. You can trust me..."

' _I trust you. I don't trust myself_.'

"I know you didn't have the time to do much," she said, voice back to normal. "I don't want to do this, but I _will_ ask every person in the castle what's wrong with you until I get an answer if I don't get one from you."

Link knew she wasn't lying. She would find out one way or another—no secret could ever be kept from her for long—whether he wanted her to or not.

"My dad." He wasn't trying to only say those two words, but it was like his mouth automatically cut him off from saying the third without his brain's approval.

Zelda's heart sunk in her chest. She prayed to the Goddesses that her assumption was wrong. "Your dad...?"

Link turned his head away from her. "There was another attack this morning."

Tears welled up in Zelda's eyes. She shut them and bowed her head. She felt that she had no room to cry, but she couldn't help it. Horrid guilt plagued her each time she learned of an attack that led to deaths of her people, though this time it hit her the hardest. He wasn't just a knight that she had known for as long as she could remember; he was the father of someone she knew personally, and though she was still hesitant to admit it even to herself, the father of someone she cared about. She knew all about the grieving family members left behind by fallen knights, but the role of a grief-stricken son falling to Link made it all more real. How many more fathers and brothers had to be lost? How many more families had to be torn apart? How many more whole families were even _left_ in her kingdom?

Not Link's. No, his family hadn't been ' _whole_ ' for years, but Link and his father had carried on as a tiny little family without his mother. Now Link had no family to speak of at all. He was alone—just as alone as Zelda felt.

"I'm so sorry, Link," Zelda whispered. "I don't—I'm not even sure what to say."

"Me either," Link said, his voice cracking.

Link's hands curled up into fists, and he squeezed his eyes shut and pursed his lips. Hot blood flooded under his cheeks. That voice crack, however small and innocent it may have seemed, was everything he had been fighting against. It was so much more than just a sudden rise in pitch. It was a dam collapsing. The first hiccup of a cry escaped him without his permission, and tears made it past his closed eyes to trail down his cheeks.

Link got to his feet and tried to walk away as fast as he could. He didn't want to cry in front of her.

"Wait!" Zelda called, reaching out and grabbing Link's wrist. She thought he would pull away from her grip, so she was stunned when he came to a halt. "...You can stay with me."

' _I can't_.'

Though she lamented that it had to be like _this_ , Link showing his emotions was what she always wanted. She wasn't going to miss this chance to see him at his rawest, most vulnerable form, as much as it hurt her. "Please?" she quietly asked.

"Why?" he countered just as quietly.

"I don't want you to have to handle this by yourself," she said.

"I've handled everything else in my life by myself."

Zelda took a step closer to him. "But you don't _have_ to."

"But I _want_ to." Link squeezed his eyes shut again. It was a lie and he knew it, but he knew what people said: _I_ _f you repeat a lie long enough,_ _it becomes the truth_. He always hoped that it would work, but it never seemed to.

"Why?"

Link wasn't expecting her to ask that. "' _Why?_ '" he repeated.

"Why do you feel like you need to handle this by yourself? I know what you said before, about others watching you, but... It's just me, here."

"I don't want to..." Link swallowed hard. "I don't want to break in front of you. If I do..."

"If you break...? Then what?"

"...Then you'll see me differently because you'll know that I'm not the hero I pretend to be. And I can't have that."

" _Link_ ," she whispered. "I..."

"Can I leave?" he asked. "Please?"

As Zelda planned her words in her head, her heart began to beat faster in anticipation of saying them. "...When—when my mother died, I... I cried, so much, every night... For months and months and _months_ , by myself. Never in front of anyone." Hearing her voice start to quiver, Zelda stopped to take a deep breath. She closed her eyes again, willing the tears not to fall. "Everyone thought I was being brave by not breaking down, but I _was_ breaking down. I just never let anyone see me when I was. I didn't want to disappoint anyone. It's been pounded into my head my whole life—I must stay strong for my country, for my people. I must never falter. Princesses don't cry. _Princesses. Don't. Cry_."

Link turned his head, and when he saw tears coursing down her cheeks, he turned his whole body to face her. Her hand let go of his wrist at the motion, falling back to her side. Link's hand slowly reached up and cupped her cheek, his thumb brushing away the newest tear sliding down her face. In that moment, he didn't care if the king himself were to burst in and punish him for daring to touch the princess. He had fought back the urge to reach out and comfort her so many times, but he couldn't let her just stand there crying.

"And heroes don't cry either," Zelda continued. She opened her reddened eyes and looked into Link's. "But I know they do."

Again, Link's mouth opened only for no words to come out, but this time it wasn't because he was holding back saying what he wanted to say; he didn't know what to say at all. He was long past the point of forming any cohesive thought. Still, he wanted to respond, and with responding verbally not being an option, he was left with responding physically.

Link moved his hand from her cheek, put both his arms around hers, and pulled her into a hug. Though it was the first time Link had ever shown such affection to her and the first time Zelda ever returned it, she instinctively buried her face in the crook of his neck and wrapped her arms around his waist. The position was slightly awkward—it was clear neither were accustomed to hugs, much less from each other—but the gesture lifted a weight off both of their shoulders. They had always noticed it, but they didn't realize just how much tension had always been between them until they were in each other's arms and all the tension melted away.

"...I'm sorry," Zelda said, her voice muffled. "I should be the one comforting you..."

"Will you do something to comfort me?" Link asked.

Zelda pulled her head back so they were face to face. "Anything."

"Talk to your father."

She frowned. She didn't want to, but she was willing to talk to him to make Link feel better. "I will soon. I promise."

"Thank you," Link quietly said.

"Is there something I can do right now to make you feel better?" Zelda asked, laying her head back against his neck.

Link put his face between her head and shoulder like she did to him, and sighed contentedly. "Just being with me is enough."


End file.
